Could someone hook me up with a scoring sheet? We have a little car show in our towns fall festival and the guy that sets up the scoring sheet lacks any ability to make sense. Like paint,for instance,(which is what I judge) he has five categories. 1.Detail(tape lines,blemishes,lay out)2.Bodywork(straightness,add ons..hood scopes,flares,so on,)3. Color match(?????)4.Scratches(????)5. Chips(?????). Stupid isn't it? All the other parts(interior,motor and so on) are based on the same lame stuff. Can any one tell me the criteria for judging? Show me what a real judging sheet looks like. I have given him my suggestions which got me nowhere so some help from you guys would be a plus. By the way, I DO know paint. Been painting for over 18 years.

The only true way to judge is participant judges. I have found that most judges at small shows have no business doing their job. Participant judging works as long as the show is not tiny, like 50 cars or more it works well.

Also, if you insist on judging something. Give extra trophies for Best of certain categories, like best engine, best paint, best street machine, best rat rod, that type of thing. Leave the classes to the participants and just judge the specialty things. Even have like a town boards pick or something if its funded by the town, or mayors choice....

If you have classes, a dozen cars from the same club would not matter one bit really. I mean, unless they were all in the same class, but then they would be fighting each other. Granted each one of their cars would get 11 votes from their friends, but if there are 50 cars there, thats not enough to win. I like your idea on the top 50 except when you do that, people that often have really nice cars get left out. When you compare a nice T-bucket to a ok 57 belair, I am pretty sure the belair would win.(although not in my books, but I am partial) Or for heaven sakes this would make it so the ricers would not stand a chance, they need their own class too.... unfortunately. This year I went to a show that had top 100 cars get trophies. 102 cars showed up. Everyone got a trophy but the guy with a tractor (not sure why he was there) and the guy with the stock Pacifica (not sure either). It was kind of odd though, because it was like everyone got a trophy, which made the trophies worthless really.

Really, it all comes down to how good of a show it is. I go to a show every year that has no trophies. They have some awards for the winners of their contests though. They have a controlled burnout contest, not like that crap on Nopi TV, a revving up contest, and a bunch of non car type contests like the tire toss and piston toss. They also play horseshoes with brake shoes, and some other things like carb bocce and such. Its the best show I've ever went to.

When you do a Top 50 (or whatever) car show, there's no way to compare the vehicles except by how clean and detailed they are. You can't compare modifications, styles of paint or anything along those lines.

There are good and bad points to doing Top 50 shows. Just as there are to doing classed shows. It's up to the person or group putting on the show to decide what they are willing to deal with to put on their event.

Good points to Top 50 type show

Easy for people working registration

All entries are eligible

Judges don't have to be experts on any particular style of car

Bad Points of a Top 50 type show

If a person judges one car they have to judge them all

All cars have to be looked at as equal, no matter age or style

Let me expand on the first bad point I listed. This is where I've seen alot of shows go wrong.
" If a person judges one car they have to judge them all "

Most shows use a group of 3 or 4 people to judge. For a Top 50 show to be fair those same three or four people have to judge all the cars. If you let different people judge you will get different results. I'm not doing a good job of getting my point across so let me try a scenario. -

Let us say that judges A, B and C are judging show field of 83 cars and then Judge B goes off and lets a different person take his place. We'll call them Judge D. After that point the scores for the remaining cars won't be consistant with the cars already judged. Why? Because people all have different views of how things should be. Say Judge B is strict on his judging and Judge D is more easy going. Won't there be a difference in scores?

In this case the people who's cars got judged by Judge B are getting the short end of the stick. Because the people who's entries are judged by Judge D weren't judged as hard.

I hope I'm making sense here. If I'm making this more complicated then it needs to be, I'll try to clarify.

The top fifty thing works well.Fifty "Sponsor's Choice" awards with business names attached are usually how it works out here at the larger outdoor events. The participants aren't left out in the cold either. They get to pick "Best Paint", "Best of Show", "Under Construction" Etc, Etc... Even the spectators can get involved by putting their hands together for the 4-6-8 "Best Pipes" contest.

The Dozen club members vote on all the cars and all classes. So they vote there buddies in to win. It is the worst way to get judged.
Troy

You sure got that right! Most of the local show-n-shines that attract 50 cars or less, are ruled by a few so-called "dominant" clubs. For the most part, it's the same old rides with the same old winners. Once in a while, some killer new rides will show up and get scunked to an inferior car. Needless to say, they don't come back the following year. Some of those clubbers who win all the time must not have a consience - they just back up to get a plastic shrine to ad to the old 'pseudo' collection.
I don't beach about it much anymore, I've learned what shows to attend and the ones to stay away from.

A local car club here has a "Run What Ya Brung" show every spring. To avoid favoritism, they ask for volunteers from the Nevada National Guard to come judge the cars. I've been able to judge twice. In exchange for judging, you get a free t-shirt and a free steak BBQ after you're finished judging.

The cars are broken up into classes (i.e. '70s Modified, '60s Stock, Under Construction, etc...) and we go out in 3-4 person teams to judge a list of cars provided to us by the car club. The team judges all of the cars in that class on a scale of 1-10.

We're instructed to judge not by our personal likes and dislikes, but by execution. For instance, 2 years ago we gave a Ford Thunderbolt a perfect 10 because we couldn't find a single flaw on it. The paint was an ugly orange color, but it was perfect. It looked like it was a foot deep, and it literally glowed - even in the wheelwells. While I didn't like the color, I couldn't find a single fault in it - and believe me we looked. My personal dislike for the color was not supposed to influence me, and it didn't. All three of us walked around and crawled under the car muttering, "There's got to be something - we can't give this guy a 10."

About the only flaw we could find on the entire car was the tread on the tires was dirty, and that was only because one of their rules is all vehicles must be driven into the show. No points were deducted, and the guy won the class.

I'll tell you what we deducted the most points for - fit and finish of body panels. I can't tell you how many cars we deducted points from because a door didn't fit flush, or a fender was out of alignment, or a trunk lid didn't fit right. One otherwise very nice Chevelle (I'd have given it a 9 overall) had a 1/2 inch gap at the top/front of the door, and an 1/8 inch gap at the bottom/front. It looked like it had just been slapped on there and tightened down. I remember saying to one of the other judges, "If you're going to go through all the trouble of disassembling and stripping a car, then priming and painting it, you can at least adjust the doors so they look like they're supposed to be on this particular car." We all agreed, and points were deducted.

I can't speak for the other teams, but we started out on every car as though it was a perfect 10, then deducted points from there. Most of them were drivers, so the chassis were most usually dirty - completely understandable. We even spotted a fuel leak on one Rambler, and told the guy about it. He was very thankful.

Overall, we had a blast and got to look at the cars a lot closer than we would have otherwise been able to. Oh, and no, we didn't touch them.

Our club has hosted a few shows, one of our members has judged concours to local shows. We keep it simple, 10 point system, Paint and fit, interior, engine, trunk, undercarriage. If the trunk or hood isn't opened, no points. I've judged one show, the biggest turn-off for me was car owners pointing out their high points, trophy freaks as I call them. They can get mad as he!! when you point out the flaws. Car owners should be asked to step away, let the judges judge and discuss among themselves the high and low points. People that go to the car shows to win trophies are there for the wrong reasons. Have fun, enjoy the camaraderie, check out the other rides. Some of the more enjoyable car shows have been a few of the churches in town, no trophies, free food for the entrants, a good time. Dan

Our club has hosted a few shows, one of our members has judged concours to local shows. We keep it simple, 10 point system, Paint and fit, interior, engine, trunk, undercarriage. If the trunk or hood isn't opened, no points. I've judged one show, the biggest turn-off for me was car owners pointing out their high points, trophy freaks as I call them. They can get mad as he!! when you point out the flaws. Car owners should be asked to step away, let the judges judge and discuss among themselves the high and low points. People that go to the car shows to win trophies are there for the wrong reasons. Have fun, enjoy the camaraderie, check out the other rides. Some of the more enjoyable car shows have been a few of the churches in town, no trophies, free food for the entrants, a good time. Dan

Nice post Dan, I have a lot of respect for the clubs who go all out to put together and host a good car show. Bill Jerone Hotrods, Rose City Classics, Route 26 Cruisers, Charriots, North county Cruisers, North Valley Cruisers, Over the Hill Gang -just to name a few... On the flip side, upstart clubs that just run around stuffing ballot boxes at the local shows usually fall apart after a few seasons, and who cares.
You're right about the Churches too.. Two of the best local shows I've been to are the Tik Tok Reunion, held in the Foursquare Church parking lot where the old Tik Tok Drive-In used to sit. Car entry is free and they serve free continental brown-bag breakfast as well as free lunch in the church gym. Crossroad's "Heavenly Hotrods" show is a good one too.

One thing that's kinda buggin' me about the way you's guys judge though, is the trunk thing... Man, you don't even wanna get in my trunk Man, ya just never know whatcha might find in there.

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